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RED TILES, BLUE SKIES Santa Barbar lawyer Steven Gilbar is one of the best-known men of letters in his adopted home town. As an expert on literary law, he has been a valuable resource to Santa Barbara's flourishing publishing community as well as its busy throng of authors. Gilbar's reputation as a bibliophile also extends beyond the city walls. He is the editor of many books about books, including The Open Door: When Writers First Learned to Read and Reading in Bed: Familiar Essays on the Pleasures of Reading. He is also the author (with Dean Stewart) of the forthcoming Literary Santa Barbara: a History of Santa Barbara Literature. In 1994 Steve Gilbar (with Dean Stewart) presented his first anthology of writings about Santa Barbara. Published by John Daniel & Company,Tales of Santa Barbara, has become a popular favorite among home-town readers and visitors alike. That book is now in its third printing. Now Gilbar offers a second collection of Santa Barbara writings, another historical literary survey of fiction, reminiscences, and poetry inspired by the "California Riviera." This new collection, Red Tiles, Blue Skies, is especially valuable and pleasurable because most of the contents can now be found nowhere else in print. Like its predecessor, Tales of Santa Barbara, Red Tiles, Blue Skies is arranged chronologically to let the reader view Santa Barbara's development since the first Spanish explorers arrived in the eighteenth century. The collection begins with a glimpse of Channel Island Indian life as seen by Fr. Pedro Font of the Anza Expedition. Chumash life is also described by F. Maynard Geiger and Lawrence Thornton. The frightening 1850s story of Jack Powers is told by Katherine Den Bell. The rest of the nineteenth century is portrayed by William Brewer, Margaret Cameron, Kate Douglas Wiggin, and Caroline Hazard. In the twentieth century, John Berger tells a part of the life of painter Fernand Lungren, and Thomas Storke recalls the aftermath of the earthquake of 1925. Modern Santa Barbara is seen in excerpts from the novels of Willard Temple, William Campbell Gault, and Newton Thorburgh. The devastating Sycamore Canyon Fire of 1978 is brilliantly described by Thomas Sanchez and given fictional gloss by Hank Searls. Santa Barbara's back country is depicted by Michael Parfit and Max Schott. In addition to these prose pieces, Red Tiles, Blue Skies, presents a sampling of poems by members of Santa Barbara's fine community of poets: Abigail Albrecht, Tom Clark, Gretel Ehrlich, Valentina Gnup-Kruip, Kyle Kimberlin, Robert Cameron Rogers, Kit Tremaine, and Margarite Wilkinson. Red Tiles, Blue Skies is a comprehensive collection of many Santa Barbaras. Anyone who has lived here will recognize some of these views. Anyone who wants to know what Santa Barbara is really like should read this book. Finally, anyone who reads this book will have a rewarding read, because this book is, first and foremost, a collection of good writing by good writers. |
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Red Tiles, Blue Skies 192 pages, 6" x 9" paperback, $12.95 For ordering information, click here or phone (800) 662-8351 |